My financial aid grant was approximately 75% of tuition (before considering any federal loans).
I filed a FAFSA, and some direct paperwork required by the University. The paperwork amounted to less than 10 pages each year. I am not including the paper count of tax documents from my family.
There were several financial aid officers, but I worked closely with one. At every step of the process she was available to answer questions. I made several mistakes in my paperwork, even one after submission. My aid officer helped me with each issue.
My father passed away when I was in school. After I reported this to my University through my financial aid officer, they immediately waived all remaining tuition requirements (excluding those covered by federal loan grants). I did not pay a dime after that.
My family made about $60k a year, before my father's passing. $30k after. We own a house. I think we were middle class, but I am not sure how that is defined.
I got my aid officer a cake every year.
They are just practicing price discrimination. They look through all your finances and consider exactly how much you can possibly bear to afford.
All that theater about giving you a 75% discount? It was just theater.
I have been exposed to a similar situation (though not from a US university, I was lucky enough to attend a private school in the UK. The tuition fees are roughly comparable): My best friend's Dad worked as a Vet until he had a heart attack. He lived, but couldn't work for a long time.
The school waived the final year of fees for my friend (~$52,000) - to my knowledge they have never requested it since.
> submit literally hundreds of pages of paperwork. (I counted.)
I recently went through the college admissions process. And I didn't count but there most certainly weren't hundreds of pages required for financial aid. Especially since the vast majority of it can be electronically filed and since there are standardized processes for applying for financial aid across different universities (i.e FAFSA).
> no matter how small, automatically disqualifies you from all help
Seriously exaggerated. Mistakes can be rectified by calling/directly contacting the financial aid office.
> Yale, according to their 1099, has a 45% profit margin
Citation? All I can find is http://finance.yale.edu/sites/default/files/finrep11-12.pdf, which nowhere backs your assertion.
I just finished my PhD at a state school this year. I've gone to state schools through my entire education. In the past decade, every school I've attended has had a professor win a Nobel Prize. I've also averaged less than a thousand dollars a semester in tuition. I'm also not from California. My state has repeatedly ranked in the bottom 10 on SAT scores.
I'm not doubting that going Ivy cost a fortune and was a huge hassle to acquire aid. I'm also not suggesting that you didn't get a fantastic network of connections through your Ivy classmates. Buying a network is expensive. However, if you're looking to get an education, those can still be had for a reasonable price.
There's a lot of annoying paperwork, but it was something I was able to file on my own on a shitty internet connection as a teenager growing up in Bangladesh who with just my dad's 1040s.
All of the Ivys I got into offered to cover 100% of my cost of education. If you're poor and smart, they give you a shot.
... As long as your parents are rich enough to hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork. I am an Ivy alum, of middle-class parents, and this "help" required me to submit literally hundreds of pages of paperwork. (I counted.) And any mistake, no matter how small, automatically disqualifies you from all help. So every year, there would inevitably be some minor mistake and I would have to lawyer up and threaten to sue the school. I was lucky enough to know one who helped me pro bono. What about everyone else?
Half of Yale's class is from the top 2%. This is not a coincidence.
"There are plenty of great state schools where you can get education basically for free."
... As long as you win the birth lottery, and your parents live in someplace like California. Only a handful of public universities even make the top 100. And even public schools are hardly "free", often costing >$10K/year just for tuition.
"You might completely miss a lot of beauty in the world around you."
Yale, according to their 1099, has a 45% profit margin. 45%. That's higher than Microsoft, Google, and Goldman Sachs. And every year they, and the other Ivies, call up all their alumni and beg for donations to their bulging bank accounts. It's disgusting.